


The Light at the End

by derryday



Series: Interregnum [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Epidemics, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Low Chaos (Dishonored), Missing Scene, Muteness, POV Child Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 13:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4062058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derryday/pseuds/derryday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later, Emily thought that her drawing for Corvo must have been a talisman, something that had secured luck to her side like a clothespin holding shut a snatch of unraveling fabric.</p><p>She had left it in his attic, along with the letter. It was then that things had changed. When she'd gone downstairs, everything had become unhinged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light at the End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Drac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drac/gifts).



> Someone take this game away from me. The feels are getting uncontrollable. In the meantime, have another missing/extended scene from the end! You don't have to have read 'Tales' to read this fic, I don't think. I had some fun figuring out Callista's curse. The Heart probably just meant that Callista swore at Havelock, but I thought it'd have been cool if she'd pronounced an actual curse. Thanks to the very creative [melonbutterfly](http://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly) for helping me write it!
> 
> This fic is for [Drac](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Drac/pseuds/Drac), because they're made of rainbows and wonderfulness and I'm so happy to know them. ♥ I did my best to keep quiet and not ruin the surprise. Hey, you are awesome. I hope you enjoy this. <3
> 
>  **Additional warning:** child endangerment. Nothing that goes beyond what happened in the low-chaos ending, but if you'd like to know more, please head to the end notes.

Later, Emily thought that her drawing for Corvo must have been a talisman, something that had secured luck to her side like a clothespin holding shut a snatch of unraveling fabric.

She had left it in his attic, along with the letter. It was then that things had changed. When she'd gone downstairs, everything had become unhinged.

Her packed suitcase had stood by the tavern door. It'd been a last small scrap of normalcy. Emily had moved to the door—one of the servants would carry the suitcase for her, she was sure. And she'd felt so jittery with excitement, she would've dropped it anyway.

They were going back. Finally, they were going _home._

At last, Emily would be back in the Tower, and a small part of her world would slot back into its proper place. They would go back. Not tonight, not quite yet, but after Kingsparrow Island. 

Sometimes, although she had packed her clothes and drawings into her suitcase, it still seemed unreal and far away. The Tower... it was like a part of another world. It'd been so long since she had seen her bedroom and the hallways and the flowering gardens.

She wondered if the Spymaster had changed anything. Her first action as Empress would be to take all of that down, whichever horrid paintings he had hung up or wherever he had rearranged her mother's fine furniture.

Up in her tower, Havelock had been almost cheerful, more upbeat than she'd ever seen him. He had only poked his head in briefly as she'd packed, but she'd seen the gleam in his eyes. "My lady," he had said, with a polite nod. "Pray meet me outside once you're done, if it suits you."

Callista had not seemed happy with that at all. Her tutor been inexplicably pale and drawn all afternoon. She'd cast worried, narrow-eyed looks at the admiral and others when she thought no one noticed. Up in the tower, she'd stared after Havelock like he'd sworn at them, and tersely ordered Emily to pack faster.

Maybe, Emily had thought to herself, maybe Callista was sad because their shared adventure was coming to an end. She must've grown fond of them all. Perhaps she thought she wouldn't be seeing Emily again, once she'd been whisked away to the Tower and her coronation.

Well, Emily had a surprise for her. If Callista wanted, she'd be offered a position among the new Empress's advisors, and Emily would hear not a word from those pipe-smoking beared old men about Callista's youth or her credentials or her lower station. 

Callista was her friend, and Emily liked her, and she'd grown fond of even the way that she often forgot that Emily was a future Empress. Callista Curnow had a place at the Tower, if she wanted it.

The tavern door was already wide open. She could see the yard beyond, the faint mist that had crept up from the river. Cold gusts of air blew in as Emily skipped across the threshold, and she listened for Ms. Lydia—any moment now she'd yell down the stairs that someone had to close the Void-bedamned door or risk letting all the heat out. 

But no sound came from behind her, no clatters from the kitchen or shuffling footsteps above. Instead, just two steps beyond the door, she ran straight into Callista.

Callista, who grabbed onto her and held her back, swaying with the momentum of Emily bumping into her—Callista, who clutched at Emily's shoulders with a grip so tight it hurt for a moment, and hugged her close. 

"Cal—," Emily started, muffled, and tried to push away, yes, she was happy too, but this was hardly the time for tearful embraces of goodbye—

Then she realized that Callista was shaking. A jolting tremor ran through her whole frame.

She pushed Emily back a few paces, not quite through the door. She seemed to try to put herself between Emily and the yard, shielding her with her body. Under her arm, Emily caught a glimpse of the yard.

Havelock was there, along with Lord Pendleton and Lydia and Wallace. Lydia's red hair shone in the fading daylight. Only the admiral paid attention to them. He looked at Emily over Cecelia's shaking shoulder. 

His face was strange and calm, carved of stone. "Just a moment, my lady," he said.

"Emily," Callista whispered. _"Emily—"_

She shook with anger, Emily realized, with a small, unpleasant jolt behind her navel, anger and impending tears.

There was a click when the safety of Havelock's pistol was flicked off.

Callista gasped in a breath. She touched Emily's cheek, her hand a little rough with fear, and turned Emily's head away.

She pulled her so close that Emily's face was pressed to her stomach. She smelled of fear-sweat, and her ribs bumped into Emily's forehead, and Emily decided, in a faraway unoccupied corner of her mind, that she'd instruct the cooks at the Tower to bake the sweetest, fluffiest cakes for Callista until those ribs were cushioned.

Callista's heaving breaths swayed them both. Emily shivered. She wanted to ask what was going on, whether they were not leaving as Havelock had said. But something stuck in her throat, unwieldy and scratchy, a lump of dread.

There was a voice. A noise, through the pounding of her heart in her ears and her own breaths, which she could hear like a bellows, pressed up against Callista. It was Ms. Lydia who spoke, high-pitched and defiant. She'd be upset when she went back inside to find the tavern cool and windy. 

Then Wallace spoke. He, at last, was loud enough for Emily to hear. "My lord?" he said. He sounded dazed, shocked.

"I'm sorry," Lord Pendleton said, wretchedly. His voice slurred a little bit. He had been drinking again.

Only once, Emily tried to pull free. She scrabbled for purchase along the soft fabric of Callista's blouse. Callista clutched at her, clung right to her shoulders. For a moment they stumbled together. Then Callista had a hold of her head, her hasty fingers catching painfully in Emily's short hair, and she turned Emily's face away again, pressed her temple so tightly into her belly that Emily could hear her rabbit-fast heartbeat.

There were voices again, Havelock's low rumble. And there was Ms. Lydia, high-pitched and defiant. Emily thought blurrily that she'd be upset once she got back inside and found the tavern cold and windy.

She heard the rapport of Havelock's pistol. He fired once. Callista flinched.

A short silence, almost worse than the noise. The gunshot echoed around the yard, seemed to bounce off the walls of Mr. Joplin's empty workshop. Someone was breathing loudly, wet and rasping gulps of air.

Havelock made a disgusted noise. "Get it done," he snapped. Gravel crunched under his feet as he walked away.

The pistol went off a second time. The noise was deafening. Emily cringed as her ears rung. She hadn't know that it would be that loud. She had only ever heard the gun go off from her tower, when the admiral practiced on the far end of the yard in the misty mornings.

Footsteps. Callista's heaving breaths. Her arms around Emily's shoulders. Then Havelock was there, an almost palpable presence at Emily's back. "Unhand her," he said.

"No," Callista choked out. Her voice was rough with terror and tears. "Don't you _touch_ her, you wretched son of a—"

Then Havelock's hands were on Emily. She let out a high, breathless cry, and clung to Callista, and felt seams pop and tear under her fingers—Callista got ahold of Emily's collar and pulled, yanked painfully on her arm, her face pale and frenzied, her eyes wide with terror and defiance—

Havelock's hands were huge and callused. He wrenched Emily out of Callista's grip as though he had carelessly picked up a doll. Emily threw her weight backwards. She let her legs collapse beneath her, yanked hard on the wrist Havelock had in a death grip.

There was a brief struggle. Emily's breath came fast and high, each like a small cry. Her feet skidded across the frozen muddy ground. For a moment she caught the edge of something wooden with her free, flailing hand—the table outside Mr. Joplin's workshop, she thought—then Callista had her by the back of her shirt...

"I don't want to go with you!" Emily shouted. She tried to twist around. Havelock held her firmly and unkindly around the waist. He did not seem to notice her struggles. "Let me go, you— you _killed_ them!"

A sudden starburst of pain exploded behind her eyes. Emily had banged her head against the table leg.

She groaned in protest when Havelock swung her up and around. He slung her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. "No," Emily protested, her voice slurring with pain, and hammered at Havelock's shoulder with her small fists. "No, let me go!"

In her whirling, tilting vision, she saw Callista get up. Havelock must have shoved her. Behind her, in the yard, half-hidden by Havelock's coat tails, she spotted something dark and seeping.

There was blood on the flagstones, running slowly into the grass and the frozen mud. A trouser leg, a pale hand. She caught a glimpse of Wallace's shoe.

Another set of hands upon her. Hands that shook, but dragged her across the dock, though she struggled to dig in her feet and kick at the planks.

Lord Pendleton smelled of alcohol and faintly of his cologne. His hair fell across his forehead in unruly waves. He was pale and sweating. Emily flinched back before she could stop herself, her head thudding into Havelock's immovable chest, because Lord Pendleton's brothers had looked like that, deranged and stretched wire thin...

"No!" Emily thrashed around one last time, and caught her hip painfully on the edge of the boat. The boat tilted under her with her frantic writhing. "No, I don't— _Corvo!"_ she yelled, wildly, "Corvo, help—"

Callista appeared behind Havelock's shoulder. Her feet were light and quick on the dock. She shouted, "You will pay for this!"

A half-rotted wooden beam swung around in her hands. It arced towards the admiral's head—but the gun came up before Emily could even blink, and the wood shattered against the metal barrel.

Lord Pendleton finally had Emily in the boat. Callista scrambled back, already looking for other weapons in the rusted metal scrap by the river. 

She froze when the barrel of the gun was trained on her.

"I owe a debt to your uncle," Havelock growled. "That does not mean I won't shoot you if you don't get out of my way."

"By the Outsider's eyes, curse you and your ancestry," Callista said. Her voice shook. Tears had welled up in her eyes, but they did not fall, and her gaze was bright and livid, like a fire burned behind the fear. "Blackness and damnation on you and every man and every woman that came before you. May death find you quickly and may the Void melt the flesh off your bones."

When they had made for the middle of the river, under the monotonous drone of the boat's motor, Emily was weeping. Small, frightened sobs that hitched painfully in her chilled chest. Air whistled in her throat, a burning cold rush.

Lord Pendleton slanted her uneasy looks. He had tried to scoot away from her as much as he could within the confines of the boat. Havelock steered them around the buoys, his face like a stone slab, hardened and cold.

Dusk fell across the river. Emily's tears felt icy cold on her face in the wind. She looked at the dock until she couldn't see it anymore in the powdery twilight. Yet she was sure Callista still stood there, at the very edge of the planks, watching them disappear into the mist.

* * *

The room was terrible.

It was warm, but that was really the only nice thing about it. An opulent bed stood at one end, a jeweled dress laid across the sheets like a bribe.

Though Emily was still shivering, she closed her eyes again and wished fervently to be somewhere, anywhere else, even in the draftiest, darkest parts of the Hound Pits, if only she were away from here.

It didn't work. Water sluiced down the windows and drummed tinnily on the metal shutters. The whale oil lamp crackled slightly as it burned. When Emily opened her eyes, she was still in the dreadful room.

Crumpled on the carpet as she was, Emily was shaking like a leaf. She had started some time on the boat ride, and it had only gotten worse. Once they had reached the flood-lit concrete slabs of Kingsparrow Island, she had been unable to walk.

Havelock had grunted distastefully and threw her over his shoulder again. The trip up to the lighthouse had been a blur, her fists so weak and tired that they couldn't hurt the admiral's shoulder, the nauseous swaying of the floor under her.

Eventually, after they had passed through an ornate dining hall, Havelock had deposited her in the room. The door had slammed shut. Emily had heard a lock click into place.

There was a dark, crusted blood stain on the carpet. Emily's eyes were drawn to it again and again. Perhaps it was from the person who had inhabited this room before the admiral had shot them too. She wondered if they'd fallen the way Wallace had, like a marionette with all its strings cut off, collapsing.

A thought burst into life in her numbed mind. It brought a fresh wave of fear. What if it was a stain from someone who'd caught the plague? Weepers, they called them. As soon as blood began trickling from their eyes, all hope for them was lost.

Emily's shaking grew worse. She had to grit her teeth to keep them from chattering. She didn't think she had stepped into the blood when Havelock had pushed her stumbling into the room. What if it had been there for some time, enough time for its rot to permeate the very air she breathed? 

She shrunk closer to the lamp. It crackled slightly as it burned. Warmth billowed forth from the metal heaters against the walls, but she felt chilled to the bone.

Outside, the wind howled. The storm raged on, whipping the rain against the shutters until it sounded more like hail than water. They were quite high up, perhaps even higher than the highest spires of the Tower. She imagined she could hear metal and stone rattling as the wind tore at the structure.

Again and again, her gaze found the stain, like picking at an itchy wound that was trying to scab over. Perhaps her own blood would splash over it before the night was over. Emily sniffled. She did not want to bleed out here on the nasty carpet in this terrible room, neither out of her eyes nor of a gunshot wound. She wanted to go back to the Hound Pits, to Callista, and she wanted to find Corvo.

Corvo. A lump formed in Emily's throat. The whale oil lamp flickered. What had happened to him? The last thing she knew was that he'd gone upstairs to sleep, after the loyalists had raised their glasses in Emily's honor.

He had not been in his room when Emily had brought him the painting. And he hadn't been there when she'd hastily written to him where they were going to go. The admiral had said vaguely that they could not wait, that Corvo would join them...

Emily froze. What if, somewhere in Corvo's attic room at the pub, there was a stain just like this one, and she just hadn't seen it? Somewhere in those moving shadows, a drying spot of blood might easily be hidden.

She curled in on herself with a small sob. Her eyes burned and itched. She did not want to cry again. Her tears on the boat had frozen to her face and left her cheeks sore and a dreadful scratch in her throat.

But what if Havelock had shot Corvo, too? He could have sneaked up to him when he'd been sleeping. Perhaps he had become bothersome to Havelock somehow. He had helped them turn the tide of the Empire, and now...

What did engineers do with a cog once it had done its duty? They removed it, lest it turn the machinery too far.

Emily pressed her forehead to her knees. Chills raced down her spine. Sweat broke out on her palms. She had that feeling again, that feeling like a balloon was swelling up in her chest and squishing her lungs even as they struggled to pull in air. She could not _breathe_ , and she... She was going to be ill.

A moment later, Emily was leaning against the door on shaky legs. She pounded on it with a clammy fist. Propriety forgotten, she shouted, voice breaking, "I need to go to the bathroom!"

The door opened so abruptly that Emily almost fell out of the room. Lord Pendleton stood there, his eyes bloodshot, a pistol pointed waveringly at her chest.

"Come on," he said, sharply, and gestured with the gun.

Emily stumbled into the bathroom. She barely saw anything except for the sink, a toilet at the side, the lid closed demurely. A claw-footed bathtub at the far end.

For a few moments she dry-heaved over the sink, but nothing came up. She just felt sick and off-kilter. She stared at her blurry reflection on the sink and watched a few lone tears drip onto the white shiny porcelain.

It reminded her of the first time she'd been imprisoned. After the pavilion, after that man had shoved a sword through her mother's stomach, right where Emily had used to rest her head when she'd been younger and ran away from her tutors.

After the assassin had grabbed her at the pavilion, there had been endless moments of tilting darkness. A hard, unforgiving grip on her arm. A blindfold, quickly flung around her face and tied behind her head, painfully catching a few strands of hair in the tight knot. Then someone had shoved her into a small room.

She had spent the next week there, quickly losing her sense of time. It had been a terrible room, too, dank and moldy. It had smelled strongly of the sea. A cot in the corner, with scratchy blankets. There had not even been a toilet.

That first day, Emily had refused, _refused_ to let these scoundrels see the future Empress beg to be allowed to relieve herself. She had sat on the cot, stiff and straight-backed, and told herself that surely it was all just a mean and terrible joke, that someone would come for her soon and admit that it had been an elaborate ploy to get the real assassins off their backs.

When at last a man with a whaler's mask had come to take her to a small, dark bathroom, Emily had been close to wetting herself. She'd been near tears, from humiliation and the horrible realization that it had all been real.

She'd had to ask to go to the bathroom, like she was a toddler again. Somehow that had driven the point home more than anything else. It was the one thing that could not have been explained away.

Emily's hands were growing cold against the sink. She turned on the tap. Water rushed into the sink. Safe behind the cover of noise, she allowed herself just a few more tears, and tried to sob out the frozen terror in her chest.

Then at the Golden Cat, the loudspeakers had been broadcasting solemn messages about Empress Jessamine's funeral. But Emily had thought again that her mother could not possibly be dead. The broadcasting station was right there in the Tower, easy to access. The men with the whaler's masks must have taken control of it.

There was no way Jessamine Kaldwin was dead. Not when her own daughter was captured and unable to attend her funeral. Of course she must've been wounded—Emily had seen the sword go in after all. But the announcements had to be faked.

She had wavered daily. Sometimes, she'd woken with the wrenching, sinking thought that it must have been real, there had been so much blood. Other days, she was almost cheerful, and had a smile for the ladies who brought her food. Some afternoons, she'd spent pushing her cot beneath the rickety desk with shaking hands, because if anything came through the barricaded window, she'd have a second longer to escape. And some, she just painted, on the lightly crumpled paper the women gave her, and hummed to herself.

Sometimes, she had refused to speak. She had seen the pity in the women's eyes, their automatic affection for the frightened child in their care. Sometimes, she had allowed herself to be drawn sniffling into a perfumed embrace, had drowsed to the feeling of manicured hands sliding gently through her hair. Not her mother's arms, not her mother's hands, but soothing nonetheless, in a borrowed sort of way that was a mere stand-in for the real thing, which she would surely get back soon.

And little by little the women had become careless with her. They had allowed her to go down to the kitchens by herself. They had thought her too frightened and burdened by grief to plot an escape. That way she had found out about the special door.

"Hurry up!" Lord Pendleton said impatiently from the hallway.

His voice always sounded hapless now, like he had set in motion a chain of events that was now bearing down on him like a landslide, one that he could only watch in baffled numbness as it ran its course.

Emily splashed a bit of water on her face. It was cold, and would hopefully hide the redness of her eyes. Then she rinsed off her hands for good measure. She hadn't touched the stain, but she wanted to be sure.

When she opened the door, she was ready. Her insides still shook and shivered, and she wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't gag again if she so much as opened her mouth. But she had a scowl ready for Lord Pendleton.

She glared up at him with all the disdain she could muster. What a fool he was, drinking and drinking until even his eyes showed dark veins. Until his wits were apparently so dulled that he was going along with whatever Havelock had concocted.

His lips trembled a little. Behind the flush of drink, his face was pale, waxy. He gestured sharply with the gun.

Emily took her time turning around, though her heart pounded sickly at the sight of the gun's muzzle trained on her, a yawning little dot of black. She kept up her silent, judging look for as long as she could, before he herded her back into the room and slammed and locked the door.

Then she sat, and stared numbly at the stain on the carpet. She did not know how much time was passing. There was no clock anywhere in the room.

Close though she was to the heat of the fire, she began to shiver again. But it was alright, now, to bury her face in her knees and squeeze out a few hot tears into the fabric of her pants. She had glared at Pendleton when it had counted, and that was all that mattered.

* * *

Corvo smelled faintly of ozone and gunpowder.

Emily didn't care that the ash-like scent stung her nose. Neither did she care that  the buttons and buckles of Corvo's coat were cold through her flimsy clothes, like he had traversed the entire height of the lighthouse in the freezing cold outside.

She just clung. She clung, and breathed in shakily, and finally, that clenched-up thing in her stomach loosened. And she thought that perhaps Corvo clung back. Maybe held her just a bit tighter than normal, as though he, too, had been worried that they would not see each other again.

At last, slowly, Corvo let her go. His hands were warm on her shoulders. He gave her a careful once-over. His face was slightly ruddy from the cold wind that must've bitten into his cheeks all the way up the lighthouse.

Emily sniffed. She looked at Corvo too. But she found no spots of blood or frayed fabric on his coat. Only a bit of frost at the shoulder, and at the top of his mask where he'd tossed it carelessly the moment he had unlocked her door.

She closed her eyes for a moment. She shivered, though not from the cold. Corvo was safe, he was safe, Havelock hadn't shot him. She said, "Can we just go?"

Corvo nodded. He stood and held out a hand to help her up. Emily took it. Her knees were still watery. A headache pounded behind her temples, perhaps from being curled so tightly into a miserable ball next to the oil lamp.

Once she stood, she had to take a moment to stop the dizziness. She was so very tired. All she wanted to do was sleep, find somewhere warm and cozy and just sleep. She longed to be out of this building, away from the horrible stain and the pretty dress laid across the bed.

On unsteady feet, she went past Corvo. He inhaled sharply, and she felt the heel of his hand just barely catch her shoulder, but it was too late. She'd already seen Martin and Pendleton.

At some point they sat down in the high-backed chairs like they'd been holding a war council. Maps and documents littered the table, fountain pens and little figurines placed on the maps, not unlike the toys Mr. Joplin had whittled for her at the Hound Pits.

Now, it looked like they were sleeping. Slumped over their grand scheme in a moment of fatigue. But Emily knew better.

She looked up at Corvo. In a small voice, she asked, "Are they dead?" 

Corvo nodded. His mouth had that pinched look again. He was silently chastising himself for not keeping this sight from her.

Emily blinked slowly at the slumped men by the table. A pen lay on the floor under Overseer Martin's slack hand. He'd been interrupted in the middle of writing. Normally she might have wondered what he'd written. She might have turned away. But all she could muster now was an apathetic, dull surprise.

She was just so tired. Her head felt so heavy on her shoulders—almost too heavy to hold up anymore. It was so full, after this long, long day. It was like the sight of the two bodies were caught in clouds of fatigue right behind her eyes. She saw them, but they did not make it past the thick fog of exhaustion.

"That's what the choking was about," Emily said numbly. Corvo frowned at her. "I heard coughing..."

In his chair, Lord Pendleton twitched.

It turned out that Emily could still be frightened after all. She squeaked, and flinched away hard enough to bump into Corvo's legs.

Emily skittered around him and stumbled backwards until her back hit the wall. Under her clothes, cold sweat beaded between her shoulders. It stuck her shirt to her and chilled her back. 

She couldn't look away from the slumped man in his chair. Her eyes burned from staring, but she couldn't stop. Pendleton was moving, a sluggish and uncoordinated full-body spasm. Pendleton was— he had become a Weeper. 

An hour ago, Emily had wanted to hit him. But she hadn't wanted _this_. She had never, never wished the plague upon him. He would turn his head towards them, empty-eyed, and spit rot at them from his cavernous, pus-filled mouth—

Then Corvo had traversed the room. Emily made a small noise, an involuntary whimper. He glanced back at her, but didn't stop. 

"Corvo," Emily called, a thin, high-pitched plea. He wasn't a dog she could call to heel, but did he have to venture so very close?

Corvo leaned over Lord Pendleton. He surveyed him intently, then suddenly dragged him to the floor. The chair thumped to the floor behind them. He tilted the man's head back, held his palm in front of his face to test the strength of his breathing.

He glanced at Emily again. He gestured for her to turn away. Emily's feet spun her around without her conscious input. One moment she was staring wide-eyed at Pendleton's slumped form, and then she saw only the wood-paneled wall, and stumbled into it gratefully.

She pressed her tilting weight up to to the wall. The room turned lazily end over end like a piece of driftwood in a current. 

Please, please, not the plague, she thought. Anything but that. If Corvo breathed in the air around the half-dead corpse, if he touched Pendleton... but he already had touched him, he'd dragged him to the floor... 

Emily sniffled. She curled her hands into fists. _Not the plague, not the plague._ It became a mantra in time with her pounding heartbeat. From behind her came a lot of choking and gagging. Emily cringed, pressed her clammy forehead against the wood. 

Then finally, she heard rasps of breathing. Lord Pendleton's voice croaked, weakly, "Corvo?"

Emily turned back. A puddle of bile was on the floor. Corvo had made him vomit to get out the poison that Havelock must have poured for them, as Emily had heard the coughing from her room.

Lord Pendleton was— Emily stared at him. Her shoulder pressed almost painfully against the wall. He was not a Weeper. He was getting up, shaky but unmistakably alive. There was no blood on him, though his face was quite red from all the coughing. His eyes were pain-glazed but alert. 

Corvo helped him to his feet. Perhaps he held him a bit more tightly around the upper arms than he should have. He hauled him into the bathroom and shut the door.

Emily went to the clock in the corner. Her legs felt wobbly and stick-thin, like they'd collapse under the weight of her body at any moment. She gave the table a wide berth. The clock, at least, ticked and clacked placidly, unknowing of what all had transpired in this room in the past few hours. It was just after midnight.

She looked out at the river, at the sea. Little by little, her heart slowed. The fright she'd just gotten seemed to fly through the window and out into the night air. Her head was too heavy to hold it, and so it slid off its perch and flew—like a bothersome bird that'd landed on her shoulder and left her as soon as it realized she had nothing to feed it with.

The water looked darker even than the sky. Even the waves crested not in white but in silver-black, a meandering, moving well of dark icy water. Distantly, she wondered if they'd greet the dawn from the lighthouse, if they would still be here on this dreadful rock in the sea when the sky turned rosy.

When Lord Pendleton came out of the bathroom, Corvo walking after him, he looked more awake. His cheeks had lost some of the unhealthy blush. His hair hung wetly over his forehead.

Corvo pushed him towards the door. _Gently_ , Emily thought—or at least far more gently than she would have done. She couldn't help but glare at his back. He'd pointed a gun at her. Perhaps she could accidentally step on his heel and make him trip. 

Pendleton coughed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. But he walked, without question or protest, ahead of Emily and Corvo as they went out of the room.

Their procession was an odd one, Emily thought. Or at least it would have been if anyone had seen them. No guards came to meet them. The metal corridors beyond the lighthouse seemed deserted.

They went past control stations, and row after row of empty corridors. The halls were drafty and cool. Wind whistled through the small gaps in the plating. Emily had heard that the Lord Regent had commissioned the fortress in all haste, and that it had been finished too quickly, not entirely structurally sound.

She scowled at nothing in particular. As if it weren't enough that he had taken Kingsparrow Island and hacked down its few trees to build the lighthouse and this stupid metal cage around it. Now he had done a ramshackle job of it too. She hoped he'd camped out here some nights, and lain shivering and swearing in his bed.

Lord Pendleton walked in front of them. Emily could see his shoulders hunch with every step, drawing up with tension. At last, a bit of petty satisfaction bubbled up in her. Let him see how horrible it was to be herded along with a gun pointed at his back. Well, Corvo wasn't pointing a weapon at him, but he might as well have been.

At last they emerged outside. Concrete slabs and walls made up the rest of the island leading down to the docks. The wind was icy, howling like a living thing, as though outraged at the man-made structure that had been erected on top of the little island. They all flinched back from it.

"Cold," Lord Pendleton mumbled. Even that single word slurred a bit. It was the first thing he'd said. 

Corvo shot him a look—unseen, but Lord Pendleton seemed to feel it, for he subsided immediately and just kept walking, slowly, down to the roiling sea.

At the dock, there was a boat. Emily squinted into the foamy drizzle that whipped up to meet them from the sea. A wooden bow, polished metal glinting—Mr. Beechworth's boat.

For a moment Emily thought she was only imagining it. The day had been so very long, and the room had been terrible, and surely her over-tired mind had finally given way and she was seeing things...

But Mr. Beechworth was there. A little more stooped, a bit older-looking, but gazing up at them with watchful eyes. His gray hair was windswept and salt-crusted. 

And next to him, shivering in the cold, with his coat draped over her shoulders, stood Callista.

Emily didn't realize she'd shouted her name until Callista's head whipped around. Suddenly, Emily was running. The storm tore at her hair once she'd left the shelter of the wall. Thin sheets of ice had formed on the dock, frozen by the harsh wind, and she slipped and nearly fell. 

Callista did slip and fall. She crashed to her knees with a pained gasp, but looked only at Emily, her eyes startled and wild with relief and oddly young. She opened her arms where she'd crumpled onto the ice, and Emily flung herself at her.

"I thought you were dead!" Emily accused, muffled by the chilled fabric of Mr. Beechworth's coat, and began to cry.

Callista held her so tightly that it almost hurt, her arms bands of desperate pressure around her shoulders. She patted Emily's back, and pressed her chilled cheek to Emily's ear.

"I'm not," she said. Her voice shook. "I'm here. I'm right here. Oh, Emily, I was so— are you alright?" A hand ran through her hair, wiped down her back in search of wounds. "Is it all done?"

Emily snuffled into the rough fabric against her face. Then Callista relaxed. The question hadn't been meant for Emily. She must've looked at Corvo over her shoulder, and Corvo must have nodded, in that solemn way he had, where a whole number of reassuring words were packed into a single look.

Pressed so close to Callista, Emily couldn't be sure. But she thought Callista wept a little too, there on her knees on the frozen dock with an Empress in her arms, rocking her gently.

"It's alright," she kept whispering, in a choked voice. "We're alright, it's over. Oh, Emily, it's _over."_

Under the pressure of Callista's desperate grip, Emily's ribs ached. She did not care. She clung back as hard as she could, until her arms shook and her fingers ached from the cutting wind and her tight, clinging hold on Callista's borrowed coat.

At last, with a noise of effort, Callista rose. Emily felt her stumble slightly under her weight. She thought she should let go, she was really getting too big to be carried around by the adults.

But she couldn't make her arms unlock. She felt like she was dissolving, that last bit of wire-thin tension finally draining out of her. The storm buffeted them like a living, impatient presence. But in the shelter of Callista's arms, Emily hardly noticed that her hair was whipped out of her face and a fine, icy mist rained down on them from the sea.

She felt drowsy, now, like she might fall asleep any second. She was sure that days were not meant to feel this long. So much had happened. This morning, she had woken at the Hound Pits, and tonight she was on Kingsparrow Island and so many of them were dead...

Callista spoke. Her voice seemed to echo through a long tunnel. "What do we do now?" she said. Emily felt the words more than she heard them, a vibration through her chest.

"Begging your pardon," said Mr. Beechworth immediately, like he'd only been waiting for his chance. "I'm thinking we should get the little lady out of here, and soon. She's got to get out of the cold."

Callista straightened her spine. Her voice still shook a little bit, but less now that she had something to do, a short-term goal to work towards. "I'll contact my uncle. We can go back to the Hound Pits, or even to the Tower."

There was a pause. Emily listened to the silence, drifting somewhere between a doze and true sleep. She frowned drowsily into Callista's shoulder—why were they all still talking? She wanted them to stop. She wanted to be somewhere warm and dry. She wanted to leave this dreadful island. 

Shivering, she Emily burrowed closer to Callista's warmth. A fine mist had frozen to the shoulders of Mr. Beechworth's coat. Callista shifted her hold on Emily, her stance trembling a little with the effort of holding her weight. 

"And we...," she said, and trailed off, a little out of breath. "We should announce the end of the interregnum."

"I could have my printers get an official announcement out by morning," Lord Pendleton said.

Callista flinched. Under Emily's weight, her heel skidded across the dock. She almost fell, and Emily made a startled sleepy noise and clung tighter to Callista's shoulders. 

She tried to lift her head and look at what was happening. But her skull was so very heavy. Already, the jolt of the movement was fading, a spark fizzing out in the dark.

A short, tense silence, in which only the wind blew sharp and whistling around them, whipping a fine, freezing spray into Emily's face. Callista stood stiffly, startled. She had not seen Pendleton until now.

 _"You,"_ she said, in a low voice. Her grip around Emily tightened.

Emily didn't care that Lord Pendleton stood at her back. He might as well have been tossed into the sea for all that Emily cared about him just now. Corvo stood next to him, and she knew that if he made one wrong move towards her and Callista, Corvo would put a stop to it.

"Me," Lord Pendleton said tiredly. "If you wish to clap me in irons, I suggest going to the Tower, it's close to Coldridge Prison."

Callista ignored him. "The others are dead?" she said. Corvo must've nodded again, because she relaxed a bit.

Vaguely, Emily thought that Lord Pendleton still sounded bone weary. The landslide he had kicked loose had run its course now, and he could only stare numbly at the wreckage it had left behind, incapable of fixing anything.

She pressed her face tighter to Callista's shoulder. She didn't want to feel sorry for him. She hoped he wouldn't speak again because if he did, in that tone, then she would. He had held a gun to her head and she wanted to be cold and resentful. But it was so hard to think, and the room with its stain and the dress seemed to far away...

Emily woke halfway when she was jostled. She hadn't even noticed that she had slept intermittently, just a few seconds in between.

"Just a moment," Callista murmured, as she set her down and kept holding her shoulders, steadying Emily's wobbly legs in the cutting wind. "Just a moment..."

Warm and heavy fabric fell around her. Emily felt Corvo kneel at her back, his hands reaching around her to do up the zips and buttons, and she realized drowsily that he had dropped his coat around her.

Then he swung her up. Emily was settled comfortably against his chest. Corvo did not stagger—but then again, he was much taller than Callista and he had carried Emily quite often, he knew her weight.

Without the coat to muffle it, Emily could hear Corvo's heartbeat. A little quickened still, but settling. The stiff fabric of the coat draped over her like a little tent, sheltering most of her face. Emily burrowed in close and pressed her chilled ear to Corvo's warmth and slept again.

She woke halfway when they settled into the boat. The storm tore at her hair and she shivered, shrinking down further in Corvo's arms.

A thought occurred to her, stretching syrupy and slow through the fog in her head. The boat's engine thrummed beneath them. She was still wrapped up in Corvo's coat. And the wind was so cold. They were heading out onto Wrenhaven River and it was the Month of Ice and Corvo didn't have his coat...

She tried to rouse herself, to get her arms free. "You'll be cold," she mumbled. 

But the thick dark blue fabric was heavy. Her hands didn't want to cooperate, cringing as soon as they peeked out from the warm shelter of Corvo's coat.

"We're men of honor," said Mr. Beechworth. If Emily turned to look at him, she would lose the warmth of Corvo's chest against her cheek, but she heard the old sailor's smile in his voice. "We'd rather freeze to death, the both of us, than let ladies feel the cold."

"I don't want you to freeze to death," Emily said. She yawned enormously. It was so hard to rouse herself even enough to form the words. 

Corvo touched her hair. Just a brief stroke of his flat palm down the back of her head. But it was clear as any words he might have said. Emily sighed. Her eyes fell shut. Well, if Corvo was _sure_ he didn't need his coat. And it really was so very cold outside the shelter of his arms.

Later, Emily didn't remember much of the boat ride. Muted conversation floated to her as though from far away. She had the impression that Callista and Pendleton exchanged a few more sharp words—or at least, Callista spoke, her voice like an unforgiving whip, and he answered with glum curtness.

Eventually, though she hadn't felt Corvo move, she heard the familiar scratch of a pen. He must've been writing something. Perhaps Callista had brought along some papers. She was a teacher, she always seemed to be carrying papers.

"Oh, of course," Callista said, in reaction to whatever Corvo had told her. "Samuel, can you—?"

"I'll go," Mr. Beechworth said at once. "I'll bring them back here. Natural philosophers have to be good for something these days."

She did not hear the boat stop, or even the thundering rush of noise in the waterlock. They were moving. But under Corvo's coat it was so safe and warm and she never wanted to unfold her sleep-heavy limbs. 

Emily dozed ot the faraway sound of more voices she didn't know. Then something creaked, a great wooden weight was moved, and they stepped into airy warmth.

The Tower. This was the Tower. Even half asleep, Emily recognized it. She could've been deafened by a roar of voices all around, and still she would have recognized the familiar noises.

The echoing footsteps, muffled by thick carpets and sometimes clacking sharply over marble floor. The faint smell of the tapestries and the old wood-paneled rooms. A sense of high ceilings, of narrow windows that let a bit of a chill into the air with their thin panes of glass. The whisper of heavy embroidered curtains across the floor, a door closing far away.

For just a moment, drowsing though she was, Emily thought she would cry again.

She wanted to open her eyes and look around. She wanted to breathe in the familiar dusty smell of whale oil lamps and aged wood. She wanted to get down and walk on her own, feel the thick carpets under her shoes and touch the polished wood and lush upholstery of her mother's furniture. She wanted to huddle by the fires that crackled golden and friendly in the hearths, see her piano again, run up the wide marble staircase to her bedroom...

But it was over. Callista had said so herself, there on the frozen dock. It was over. At long last, they were done. The day was ending, and no more frightening and inexplicable things would happen on the morrow. She could let go without fear of waking to find the Tower gone.

Emily sighed into Corvo's shirt. Sleep rose like a gentle wave and pulled her under. She was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warning: The Heart said, "Emily banged her head in the confusion. They dragged her crying into the boat. She called [Corvo's] name." Essentially, that's what I wrote. Havelock manhandles her into the boat and she is later briefly held at gunpoint in the lighthouse. There are some references to Emily's first captivity with the Whalers. No physical harm beyond the bump on the head happens.


End file.
